Healthy Relationships

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STORY #11

Audience:

1. I like a partner who is willing to think about the funny side of our conflicts.

2. I think taking a relationship too seriously can spoil it; that's why I like partners who have a sense of humor.

3. I like a partner who makes me laugh whenever we are facing a tense situation in our relationship. Score: --

Comedian:

1. I admit that I sometimes try to use humor to avoid facing a problem in my relationship.

2. I like to use humor when I have a conflict with my partner because I believe there is a humorous side to any conflict.

3. When I disagree with my partner, I often try to make a joke out of it. Score:_ --

The humor story can have one enormous advantage: Most situations do have a lighter side, and people with this story are likely to see it. When things in a relationship become tense, sometimes nothing works better than a little humor, especially if it comes from within the relationship. Humor stories also allow relationships to be creative and dynamic. But the humor story also has some potential disadvantages. Probably the greatest one is the risk of using humor to deflect important issues: A serious conversation that needs to take place keeps getting put off with jokes. Humor can also be used to be cruel in a passive-aggressive way. When humor is used as a means of demeaning a person to protect the comedian from responsibility ("I was only joking"), a relationship is bound to be imperiled. Thus, moderate amounts are good for a relationship, but excessive amounts can be deleterious.

STORY #12

1. I think it is okay to have multiple partners who fulfill my different needs.

2. I sometimes like to think about how many people I could potentially date all at the same time.

3. I tend and like to have multiple intimate partners at once, each fulfilling somewhat different roles. Score: --

There are a few advantages to a collection story. For one thing, the collector generally cares about the collectible's physical well-being, as appearance is much of what makes a collection shine. The collector also finds a way of meeting multiple needs. Usually those needs will be met in parallel--by having several intimate relationships at the same time--but a collector may also enter into serial monogamous relationships, where each successive relationship meets needs that the last relationship did not meet. In a society that values monogamy, collection stories work best if they do not become serious or if individuals in the collection are each viewed in different lights, such as friendship or intellectual stimulation. The disadvantages of this story become most obvious when people are trying to form serious relationships. The collector may find it difficult to establish intimacy, or anything approaching a complete relationship and commitment toward a single individual. Collections can also become expensive, time-consuming, and in some cases illegal (as when an individual enters into multiple marriages simultaneously).

Robert J. Sternberg is IBM Professor of Psychology and Education in the department of psychology at Yale University.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Sussex Publishers, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group